Stand Your Ground

Finally, some common sense from the Supreme Court. Very little though:

The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned lower-court orders that the federal government must try to repatriate Toronto-born Omar Khadr from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

However, the top court agreed Canadian officials violated Khadr's human rights, and that he continues to be threatened by the effect of those violations.

In a unanimous decision released Friday, the court declared that Canadian officials breached Khadr's right to life, liberty and security of the person under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
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Wait a minute... Do you think Khadr had any concerns about others' right to life, liberty and security of the person when he became a Taliban combatant? When he threw a grenade at a US soldier - do you think he cared about that soldier's right to life, liberty and security of the person? So why should we care about his rights; especially - his right to liberty? I thought courts were supposed to sentence criminals to jail time, not affirm their Charter right to liberty.

Not to mention that if Khadr and his fellow jihadis ever succeeded in their fight to force Islamic fundamentalist way of life on the entire planet, the very phrase "right to life, liberty and security of the person" would become a myth; passed from the father to the son in deep secrecy and no more believable than a myth of a long-gone golden age. Jihadi combatants don't care about our rights - why should we care about theirs?

The court ruling should have been clear - Khadr is a jihadi combatant and he must stand trial for what he did. The ruling should have mentioned that, by siding with Canada's enemy at wartime, by raising arms against Canadian troops and their allies, Khadr forfeited his right to Canadian citizenship and all the rights and privileges that are associated with it. Thus, if he was ever to be repatriated - that would be to Afghanistan. Where, I bet, he'll have plenty of respect to right to life, liberty and security of the person from his fellow countrymen.

The opposition says that now it's up to the government to take actions - they're right. The amendment to the Citizenship act, that would strip combatants like Khadr off their Canadian passport of convenience, is long overdue. And it is up to the Parliament, not to the courts to close the legal loopholes; so, hopefully, the government does something about that. But at least they are no longer compelled to bring Khadr to Canada. I guess that's the most we can expect from the courts nowadays.

Personhood initiatives haven't had much success so far, but the new generation of pro-lifers doesn't give up:

WASHINGTON, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Twenty-three year-old Katie Walker is part of the new generation of young pro-life activists who sees her work as part of the great continuity of centuries of human rights development in the western world. As the full-time public relations director for American Life League (ALL), Katie says that one of the “most striking” aspects of her work is the Personhood Movement, a major focus of ALL, and one that is reframing the issue for the public.

“We need to start looking at the pro-life movement as a human rights movement as an extension of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s,” Katie told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview Thursday.
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“When you’re discussing this and you’re getting down to brass tacks with pro-aborts, and you’re in any kind of hard-core debate, it always comes down to the baby in the womb is not a human person because of either age, dependency level or location. These criteria have been used to justify slavery and all kinds of human rights abuses through the last couple of thousand years.

“If you look back historically, it is the same movement and the parallels are undeniable.”

Pro-life leaders need to shift their focus to present their position as one of a defence of human rights. With pro-abortion advocates, this “takes away their ammunition.”
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Actually, there are some radical pro-aborts that go as far as denying not just personhood, but also the humanity of the unborn baby, claiming that it's "a blob of tissue" which is a "part of woman's body". But that only shows that those guys are running out of arguments. They know that admitting the humanity of the unborn would put them on the defensive. And they know that if they have to defend their position in an open debate, all their arguments against fetal rights could be narrowed down to "because we said so" or "because the courts said so".

Well, those are the same courts that once refused to recognize black people as persons and then - ruled that women weren't persons. In both cases, the courts later had to admit that they were wrong. With the help of the new generation of pro-lifers we can look forward for the courts to admit that they were wrong on the question abortion and fetal rights. And, by the way - at least we have a new generation of pro-lifers, that are ready to take up the fight - with the new strength and the renewed approach. Our opponents are unlikely to have any of that.

Let's say you have a rally of a few hundred thousands and you have a counter-protest rally of a few dozens - how do you make sure you give equal coverage to each side? The typical solution was to offer each side equal amount of air time - you spend 5 minutes interviewing one of the few-hundred-thousand-strong crowd (preferably - someone who has a hard time answering the tricky questions) and then you spend another 5 minutes interviewing the leader of those few that showed up to counter the main event. Now, the leftie's idea of fairness also includes pretending not to be able to estimate the actual number of participants of the major rally, in an attempt to portray the counter-protest group as equal in size:

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 28, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A CNN anchor told his viewers last week that he could not make out for certain whether there were more pro-life or pro-abortion advocates demonstrating at the 37th annual March for Life - despite the fact that conservative estimates place several hundred thousand pro-life protesters in D.C. that day, compared to a few dozen pro-abortion counter-demonstrators.

Noting that there was a rally on the Washington Mall, CNN’s Rick Sanchez asserted, “So as you might imagine there are both sides being represented.”

But Sanchez then surmised that both sides might have had comparable numbers present.

“Which side is represented the most Angie, do we know?” Sanchez then queried to his producer. “Do we know?” When there was no response, Sanchez went on to promise that CNN would “keep an eye” on the situation and report on the matter “fairly and squarely.”

While Sanchez was speaking, CNN footage gave the initial impression of equal pro-life and pro-abortion numbers by using two close-up video shots of the small cadre of pro-abortion advocates gathered in front of the Supreme Court building. Another frame showed a close-up of individuals holding aloft pro-life signs with pro-abortion advocates jockeying for footage by walking with their signs in front of the camera.
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Hmm.... I wonder whether Sanchez would have the same problem doing the math if this was an anti-war rally, opposed by a handful of supporters of the war on terrorism? Or - if this was an "animal rights" march, countered by a few seal hunt supporters? I bet, in that case, he would be glad to give us the most optimistic estimate of the number of participants, while the counter-protesters could look forward for nothing but a brief mention that yes, there was a handful of them there. But when it comes to a rally the CNN wouldn't want to notice - they can't do the math. Can't see the difference between hundreds of thousands and mere dozens.

This, once again, shows the importance of having independent Catholic and Social Conservative news outlets as well as the pressing need to redouble our efforts to bring those few media outlets to the mainstream level.

Here's an interesting occurrence, observed by Matthew Archbold from the Creative Minority Report blog:

She's been "living naturally" since New Year's Day. (Her words)

She said she feels so much better ("fantabulous!!!" was her word) and she's been doing a lot of reading about all the "unnatural" chemicals people put in their bodies and how harmful it all is.
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In the conversation my buddy joked about me "detoxing" my five children.

"What?!" gasped the woman. "Really? You really have five kids?"
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Then she asked me if I was crazy?

I responded I was. (I mean, how else do you respond to that?)

"My gosh," she said, slowing herself down for a moment. "I couldn't even imagine. One's enough for me. I'm not having anymore. My husband wants more but thank God for the Pill."

Ms. Natural Living is on the Pill?

I couldn't hold me tongue so I just threw it out there. "How does all this natural living coincide with all the chemicals you're putting in your body from the Pill?"

And then she said that she needs to be on the Pill because it allows her to live naturally. If she had more children then she wouldn't have the time to live the way she wanted to live, she said.
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Yep, that's the way the secularist double-think works: chemical contraception is natural. Having children - is not. Just like there are plenty of people who believe that gender is "socially constructed" but homosexuality is "natural". Or - that seal hunt is cruel but abortion is a "human right".

But thankfully, there are still people who question those secularist dogmas:

What a horrific lie it is, to convince millions upon millions of healthy woman that their bodies' natural fertility is a terrible disease for which a decades-long prescription to a drug engineered to fight against it is not only necessary, but imperative!
(Erin Manning)

Right on!

Despite numerous violations to the protocol, the Federal Court won't review the case. No surprise here, considering that one of those directly involved in sneaking Canada's chief abortionist through the backdoor was none other than Chief "Justice" Beverley McLachlin:

A Federal Court ruled that the Governor General’s 2008 induction of Henry Morgentaler into the Order of Canada cannot be legally contested. Frank Chauvin, a retired Windsor police officer and a member of the Order of Canada, challenged the abortionist’s award, objecting to the secretive process by which the Order’s Advisory Council made its selection and taking issue with reports that the Council abandoned its own protocols to drive through Morgentaler’s nomination. Chauvin also argued that the Council’s chair, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, should have recused herself from voting on the nomination, given that Morgentaler is regularly before the courts and could again have business before the Supreme Courf of Canada.

Federal Court Prothonotary Kevin Aalto said that Chauvin does not have standing to bring the case. The judge also said the Governor General’s Royal Prerogative is not subject to review.
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So, here you have it. She can misuse the Royal Prerogative to award the nation's highest honor to someone whose only achievement was unleashing the abortion holocaust upon that very same nation. She can twist the protocol, ignore the advisory committee vote, forge a backroom deal that would remain under cover until the very last moment. Then, once some rumors start leaking out, she and her office staff can openly mock anyone who calls to express their protest by giving them the phone number of Campaign Life Coalition. ("Go, complain to someone who cares; GG office doesn't" - is that how we're supposed to understand that?) And there's nothing we can do about it. Except looking forward to the end of her term. Hopefully, whoever replaces her uses the very same Royal Prerogative to reverse this shameful patronage appointment.

If there's anything positive about the runaway deficits is that the government can no longer just give the money away blindly, agreeing to bankroll every malicious special interest group there is just to avoid another scandal in a minority Parliament. Finally, they're doing what should have been done years ago - revising the spending and cutting off funding to the most odious groups.

Since last fall, the federal Conservative government has been withdrawing taxpayer funding from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that use their grants to take sides against Israel in the Middle East conflict. Now comes word that last week, Ottawa told the United Nations it would no longer fund the world body's Palestinian refugee agency. From now on, Canadian aid to Palestinians will be directed to specific projects. We will no longer give lump-sum aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA), since most of that money simply goes straight into the Palestinian Authority's (PA) general treasury, where it might be used for humanitarian projects or might be used to arm and train terrorists.

This is a bold move for Ottawa, which is the first Western government to cut off funding for UNWRA.

Although UNWRA has long been a biased player in the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is seldom criticized for its incitement of anti-Israeli hatred and violence by Palestinians. It has funded textbooks that deny the right of Israel to exist and paid teachers who call on Palestinian children to push the Jewish state into the sea. It harbours radical Islamists and anti-Semites on its payroll and was even caught in 2004 using its own ambulances to ferry terrorists away from Israeli sites they had just attacked.
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Not to mention that most of those "refugees" whom UNWRA is mandated to help, are in fact - second and third generation descendants of Arabs who left Israeli territory after the Jewish state had been proclaimed. If the actual goal had been to help them - they would have been long absorbed and assimilated into the neighboring Arab countries. After all, Israel too had to absorb nearly a million of Jewish refugees that had been forced out of Arab countries in late '40s and early '50s. But, "thanks" to the continuous efforts of all Arab governments and the unwillingness of the UN to even notice the true cause of the problem, the Arab emigres and their descendants have been artificially maintained as a separate landless nation.

Instead of demanding that these people be granted full civil rights and full citizenship of the countries where they've been living for decades and where their children and grandchildren were born, UNWRA's role has been nothing but perpetuating the problem by allowing anyone who had lived in British Palestine for more than 2 years to be counted as "Palestinian refugee". Yep, that's what their logic is like. It takes 2 years for one to become a citizen of the long-abolished British Palestine, but 60+ years in any other Arab country is not enough to stop being a stateless "refugee" to become a fellow national with equal rights and obligations. And, as we've seen, UNWRA's activities went way beyond inflating the number of "victims" and perpetuating their dependency status.

Now they've finally lost their funding from Canadian government - among with other groups that offer political and financial support to radical Islamists and other "motivated militants". Of course the radical lefties are furious - their precious myth is being broken. But we should only applaud this common sense move. It's a small step, but it's a step in the right direction.

Abortion vs Choice explained by Mike S. Adams:

...I am often asked by Libertarians some version of the following question:

“How can you describe yourself as a Republican with some libertarian leanings when you are pro-life?” – although some foolishly say “anti-choice.”

The answer to that question is pretty simple. The true libertarian is pro-life because what has come to be known as the “pro-choice” position is actually “anti-choice” – in a classically Orwellian sense. This is true for a couple of fairly simple reasons.
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Abortion is fundamentally anti-choice because the decision to abort is only one choice. Whenever that choice is made a lifetime of choices are prevented. The average life is over 27,000 days long and we all make dozens of choices daily. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that each abortion results in an average net loss of at least a million choices.

Libertarians, therefore, should be adamantly opposed to abortion as a matter of principle. That most of them are not suggests that it is not the brain but another part of the body that is guiding their decision on the issue.
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Not to mention that the "choice" to abort a baby is rarely an informed choice; that it's often based on false perceptions or made under pressure from partners or family members. Our opponents use the euphemism "choice" referring to abortion. The fact is - abortion is and has always been an unchoice. If all the information about fetal development had been available 40 or 50 years ago - abortion would have never been legalized.

As it turns out, abortion clinics can operate not only without a separate sterile operating room, but also - without a licensed nurse on staff, without personnel, trained to handle controlled substances and even - without a valid operating license:

NEW ORLEANS, LA, January 20, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women in New Orleans, Louisiana, is still taking appointments for abortions and seeing abortion patients even though it has had its operating license revoked by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals this week, reports Operation Rescue.

The clinic was charged with violating laws requiring that abortion clinics have a licensed nurse on staff, and that they have proper state and federal licensing for controlled substances.

Abortionist Ifeanyi Charles Anthony Okpalobi (pronounced ok-PAH-luh-bee), a Nigerian national, was warned repeatedly that his clinic was not in compliance with the law. He has 30 days in which to appeal the decision during which time he can remain open for business under Louisiana law. The appellate process could take up to six months.

Operation Rescue investigators have confirmed today that the Gentilly Medical Clinic for Women is open and taking patients.
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The end justifies the means, doesn't it? Who needs sterile medical environment, qualified personnel and safety rules when there's demand; when getting rid of that "unwanted" baby in the womb is considered to be the easiest solution? And who would insist on complying with the standard health and safety regulations, when one of the "advantages" of abortion is that it's cheaper to slaughter the baby before he gets a chance to see daylight, than letting this poor baby be born? Killing is a money-making business. All the "safe" and "legal" rhetoric is for the naive activists who believe that this business can somehow be beneficial for them.

Yes, this year we have three Australian cities - Sidney, Brisbane and Melbourne joining over 150 communities across North America to participate in a 40-day Pro-Life prayer vigil, which begins February 17 and runs through March 28. In Canada, the Lenten vigil will take place in Montreal, Toronto, Guelph, Edmonton, Red Deer and Kelowna:

The 40 Days for Life movement continues to grow. Thus far, five coordinated national 40 Days for Life campaigns have been conducted, twice each year, beginning in the fall of 2007. More than 300,000 people in some 280 cities have already taken part. Five abortion centers have closed following 40 Days for Life prayer vigils. Some 27 abortion industry employees have quit their jobs, including Abby Johnson, who left her position as director of a Planned Parenthood abortion center in Texas last October.

“And most incredibly,” Bereit said, “we are aware of 2,168 children – and their mothers – who were spared from the tragedy of abortion. And those are just the ones we know about. ”

The campaign dates of February 17 through March 28 coincide with the Christian season of Lent. “The Lenten season presents a call to sacrifice,” said Bereit, “and that is central to 40 Days for Life. Standing in prayer outside an abortion facility is indeed a sacrifice – particularly in northern locations where cold temperatures and snowy conditions are often part of the weather landscape in February. But people know their efforts have a profound impact, and so they overlook the inconvenience and their personal discomfort to stand in peaceful witness.”
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And for those who live in New Brunswick - we have the Rosary for the Unborn every Tuesday in St. Bernard's church in Moncton. And, of course, there's always need for help in Fredericton; especially - on Tuesdays, when Morgentaler's abortion facility opens its doors.

For insurance purposes - by the New York's Department of Health. But not by the criminal code:

So the NY State Dept. of Health is acknowledging the humanity of the person in the womb. Sometimes. If you want government funding, the baby counts as a human. But if the baby is killed (even against the mother's will,) it doesn't. Got it?
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Here, in Canada, pro-life groups and MPs are working hard to bring back the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. The latter might not be as easy as it seems - while you can introduce as many private member bills as you wish, getting your private member bill in the order of precedence is literally - once in a decade opportunity. Still, as the Supporters of the Unborn Victims of Crime Act group reported in their recent e-mail release, we may actually see the bill reintroduced, once the Parliament resumes in March.

One of the commenters has shared a link to an interesting article on the Progressive Economics Forum. According to them, the Federal government doesn't really have much room for spending cuts: most of their expenses are transfers to other levels of government and, of what's left - the lion share goes to the areas such as National Defense and Public Safety, Revenue Canada and the Treasury Board, leaving mere $24.5B for other departments. So, they conclude, even if the government eliminates those departments completely - it won't be enough to balance the books in 2011/12, let alone - in the coming fiscal year.

Here's how they do the math: There are transfers to other levels of government that the Feds promised not to reduce. There are benefits (child, old age, EI) that the government wouldn't want to claw back. There are operating expenses of the Crown corporations - those are needed to deliver the mail, insure mortgages and so forth. And there are operating expenses, of which the lion share goes to the departments that the government regards as top priority. That leaves mere $24.5B or less than 12% of the total program spending, where the cuts are even theoretically possible. So, they conclude, even if the government succeeds in slashing a billion or two - it will seriously hurt the public service, but won't make much of a difference when it comes to over $45B deficit, projected for this year.

Well, nobody argues about the coming fiscal year. 2010/11 - that's still the "stimulus" year, when the government still tries to prevent the crisis from returning and to accelerate economic growth with stimulus spending. Although, some fiscal discipline certainly won't hurt. Let's look at 2011/12 - the first "post-stimulus" year, when the nation should start returning to business as usual. The deficit projection for that year has grown from the originally projected $14B to $27B. Could it be that there's absolutely no way to reduce that number without defunding the entire departments, without clawing back pensions, benefits and transfers to provinces or without raising taxes?

The author bases his calculations on the 2008/09 numbers. In that year, operating expenses of Federal departments (not including the Crown corporations) amounted to $61.5B. Operating expenses for 2011/12 are estimated at... $72B. That's a 17% increase over 3 years - despite the record low inflation. By 2014/15 operating expenses are projected to hit $80B. Again, that doesn't include the Crown corporations. Their operating expenses are capped at $7.6B for the next 5 years. Isn't there a way to keep the Federal government operating expenses capped for the same period of time?

Of course there is. Yes I'm talking about zero-based budgeting. (And I'll have to keep talking about it until we actually see it being phased in.) If each department is compelled to justify every single expense they incur - it won't be the Finance Minister's job to justify his decision not to add 3 or 4 extra billions on top of the last year's operating expenses. It will be up to the departments to explain why those expenses are even there. That will allow to eliminate wasteful spending such as:

Expenses that were originally designated as temporary or as emergency measures - that should have lapsed years ago.
"Year-end" expenses - when the department tries to spend as much as possible before the end of the fiscal year to demonstrate the "need" for more funding.
Ideologically-driven spending - I'm talking about grants to NGOs and similar organizations that are more lobby groups than charities.

If the government succeeds in slashing operating expenses from the projected $72B back to the pre-recession level ($62 or so) - that will save ~$10B in 2011/12 alone.Most likely it won't be enough to fully eliminate the deficit. But borrowing $10B less in 2011/12 will result in slightly lower interest payments, saving about $0.7B annually.

The $32.8B in transfers as part of direct program expenses too should be subjected to the same scrutiny. Unlike the $56B in major transfers to provinces, (which the government pledged not to reduce,) those are targeted grants. Zero-based budgeting will make it possible to draw a clear line between supporting important infrastructure projects and bankrolling plenty of yell-the-loudest special interest groups and NGOs under the guise of promoting tourism or celebrating multiculturalism. Sure, those are small potatoes, but - a million here and a million there can add up to a billion or two a year. Not something that a responsible government would neglect when program expenses outnumber the revenues.

And, theoretically, those measures alone would be enough, to balance the books in 2012/13 at the latest. Sure, the government could resort to even more extreme measures, if needed. (Such as - capping transfers to provinces at 2010/11 level or suspending some foreign aid projects that don't directly deal with disaster relief operations.) That could slash a few more billions off the inflated program expenses, nearly eliminating the deficit, projected for 2011/12. But even without those extreme measures, we definitely don't have to wait until 2015/16 for the Federal budget to be balanced. As we see, it could be done much, much earlier.

A new Angus-Reid poll shows just that. Most of the respondents have no idea what the status-quo really is:

Only one-in-five Canadians (20%) are aware of the current status-quo of abortion in Canada: a woman can have an abortion at any time during her pregnancy, with no restrictions whatsoever. A large proportion of respondents (43%) mistakenly believe that, under current guidelines, a woman can have an abortion only during the first three months of her pregnancy, with no other restrictions. Two other incorrect responses also garnered mentions. Ten per cent of Canadians think a woman can have an abortion at any time during her pregnancy, but only if her life is in danger, if she has been the victim of rape, or if the fetus has serious defects, and 14 per cent believe a woman can only have an abortion during the first three months of her pregnancy, and only if her life is in danger, if she has been the victim or rape, or if the fetus has serious defects.
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On top of that, almost 7 in 10 respondents either believe that women have enough access to information about alternatives to abortion, or they're not sure. Only 31% are aware of the grim reality - that women don't get enough information on alternatives to abortions - if they even get any.

And yet, almost 6 in 10 respondents don't want the abortion debate reopened. They are comfortable with what they believe is the status-quo. And they don't really want anyone to tell them that the real situation is different. So, we have a catch-22 situation: without being aware of the the true status-quo, people don't believe they need to bother reopening the abortion debate and, without reopening the abortion debate, most people will remain unaware of the legal vacuum on abortions, which has existed in Canada since the ill-famous Supreme Court decision of 1988. If anything, it's surprising, how, despite this glaring lack of awareness, we have roughly half of the respondents supporting grater restrictions on abortions than what they believe those restrictions are.

So how can we break out of this catch-22? Obviously, we need to fight that ignorance; we need to raise awareness of what the status-quo really is, despite all the opposition from the pro-abort groups. But here's another thing that can help us break the deafening silence: A large majority (79%) would back an initiative in their own province that would make it mandatory for health care workers to offer information to pregnant women about alternatives to abortion.

And we should demand just that. After all, if we're talking about "choice" - that means choosing something out of several alternatives. In addition, we should demand that standard informed consent rules become applicable to abortions. Again - if we're talking about a medical procedure, then patient should be made aware of all the possible side effects. Not to mention the mandatory ultrasound - let every woman know what her baby in the womb truly looks like. Our opponents claim that they are "pro-choice" - fine; but let this be informed choice. Because so far, ignorance is their power.

How do you prove that the planet is warming, when it actually isn't? Here's a 14-minute video that shows how the temperature data has been manipulated by the US government's National Climate Data Center, in order to support the "global warming" agenda. It turns out that their computer programs would produce a "hockey stick" chart, no matter what data was in the input.

1. NCDC is no longer monitoring many actual temperature stations. Coleman explains, “In the transition to a computer averaging system, the National Data Climate Center deleted actual temperatures at thousands of locations throughout the world as it evolved to a system of global grid boxes. The number that goes into each grid box is determined by averaging the temperatures of two or more weather observation stations nearest that grid box.” This method is inaccurate according to D’Aleo because “temperatures are not linear over space, but instead vary enormously because of differences in terrain, elevation, vegetation, water versus land and urbanization.” It also makes an apples and oranges situation, comparing today’s averaged grid boxes to past actual station temperatures.

2. The number of weather stations NCDC uses was reduced 75%, from approximately 6,000 to 1,000 stations.

3. The vast majority of the stations cut from the record were from the cooler higher latitudes and altitudes. Smith says, “The more I looked, the more I found patterns of deletion that could not be accidental. Thermometers moved from cold mountains to warm beaches; from Siberian Arctic to more southerly locations and from pristine rural locations to jet airport tarmacs. The last remaining Arctic thermometer in Canada is in a place called ‘The Garden Spot of the Arctic,’ always moving away from the cold and toward the heat.”

4. Temperatures then were altered by “homogenization,” a process which always seemed to result in higher readings. According to the report,”the data centers then performed some final adjustments to the gathered data before final analysis. These adjustments are in some cases frequent and undocumented. Examining raw data versus processed final data shows numerous examples where the adjusted data shows a warming trend where the raw data had little change.”
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Meanwhile, even the Times of London had to admit that the world has been misled over global warming: A thorough investigation discovered numerous scientific blunders in the studies that predicted glacier meltdowns as result of the "climate change".

But the science is settled, isn't it? Sure it is! There's certainly no discord among those crooked climate change activists pretending to be scientists; they have sure settled - on getting the taxpayers' money.

Lorne Gunter reviews the clash between science and political correctness in his National Post article:

Dr. Brinton’s admission — if you can call it that — is not exactly straightforward. She is one of the co-authors of a study of 1,600 Seattle women that seems to show a 40% greater chance of a woman developing breast cancer if she has had an abortion.

Still, even such an indirect concession by Dr. Brinton would be remarkable.

In 2003, Dr. Brinton chaired a conference on the ABC (abortion-breast cancer) link for the NCI and invited “over 100 of the world’s leading experts” to attend.

To that point, worldwide, 29 of 38 studies in the previous 40 years had shown a slightly elevated risk for breast cancer among women who had prematurely terminated a pregnancy — somewhere between 30% and 100% greater risk, right in the range of the new Seattle study. Interestingly, though, none of the authors of the raised-risk studies was invited to the NCI conference, nor were any of their findings discussed. Yet at the end of the conference, it was declared to be “well established” that “induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk.”

Frankly, the whole event reminded me of a United Nations conference on global warming: Invite only those scientists who agree with the preconceived conclusions of the gathering’s organizers. Ignore (or even suppress) any research that tends to disprove their theories. And in the end declare that the “science is settled” because all the world’s “experts” have said so.
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There is plenty of hypocrisy in this, too. Second-hand smoke increases non-smokers’ risk of lung cancer by less then 20%, even with prolonged, heavy exposure. That’s about half the apparent increased risk of developing breast cancer from having an abortion. Yet governments have passed all sorts of laws shielding the public from secondhand smoke at work, the arena, the mall and the stadium.

This is pure bias. Politicians and cause pleaders favour abortion and oppose smoking, so they admit risks only as it suits their agendas.
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Well said! Our opponents often accuse us of violating the sacred principle of separation between church and state. Well, how about separating environmental and pro-abortion activism from science and science from politics?

Yes, it's that time of the year again. The government is conducting pre-budget consultations on the Department of Finance website. There are just 5 questions this time (and that includes the "other comments" question,) but the word limit has been extended to 200 words - instead of 50. So let's take advantage of this opportunity and demand fiscal sanity - in 200 words or less.

The first two questions are about the fiscal stimulus - how beneficial it was and what could be done to make its measures more effective. Here - each one has his own experience; for me - I couldn't even benefit from the $1350 home renovation tax credit (although my landlord sure did). The only thing that benefited me directly was a ~2.2% increase in personal exemption - from $10100 to $10320. If they want my opinion on how to improve the effectiveness of this measure: sure, just increase the personal exemption further - to $11,000 at the least, so that people could save a little more than $33 a year.

Then come the two questions on the directions, that we'd like the government to take once the recovery is achieved: How could the government improve the competitiveness of the Canadian economy (so that Canada continues to attract investment and to create jobs) and when should the government get rid of the deficit? Well, the answers are simple: competitiveness is achieved through low taxes and taxes can only be lowered if the government brings program spending under control and balances the budget as soon as possible to make room for broad-based tax cuts.

Here are some numbers to consider: Back in 1999/2000, program spending stood at $118B. When Stephen Harper came to power, it was already at $175B. Increasing steadily by 5-7% during each of the three years preceding the recession, program spending reached ~$208B in 2008/09 and was expected to reach $216-218B in 2009/10. Instead, thanks to the stimulus spending, it has ballooned to over $240B. Had the program spending increase been capped at inflation+population growth, the "base" program spending for 2010/11 would have been "only" $163B. And even with the emergency / stimulus spending on top of that amount, overall program spending (in this imaginary world of fiscal sanity) wouldn't have exceeded $190B. Instead, the government is preparing to spend $245B in the coming fiscal year and slightly less than that - in 2011/12.

So what should we demand? Spending control and balanced budgets. Zero-based budgeting should be phased in, first - in non-essential departments, then it should become the rule everywhere. Budgetary balance must be restored by the end of 2011/12. A strict spending cap must be introduced for at least 6-8 years to let the population growth and inflation catch up with the inflated amount of program expenses. During those years, any surplus revenues (if any) should be evenly divided between debt repayment and broad-based tax cuts for families and small businesses.

Or - what if every other business in Canada used the same tactics as the Morgentaler's abortion franchise and those activists who lobby its interests in the courts and parliaments? Jim Hnatiuk, the leader of the Christian Heritage Party of Canada, brings his hunting store as an example:

If I was able to defend in court a person's God-given right to hunt every day of the year, say, in order to feed his family, this would open the door. If the court ruling also struck down the restrictions on the 'bag limit' (the number of animals killed,) this would be an added bonus. After all, a lot of the politicians and judges like to hunt so I could target who I lobbied. It would still be a very hard court case to win, but then again, if I fought long and hard enough, I just might win eventually.

People would then need more guns, ammunition, clothing and they would appreciate coming to a store that has qualified employees. My sales would sky rocket and I could very well become independently wealthy in a very short time. I could open up franchises in other provinces. Just think of the money I could make!
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That's pretty much how it works. Except that merely striking down all the restrictions on hunting is not enough. For full analogy, Jim must lobby the government for subsidies - so that low-income families too could exercise their right to hunt. On the long run, the government would have to provide free hunting equipment and ammunition to every citizen who feels like going to the nearby forest and shooting something that moves. Cause it's their human right, got it?!

And what about the taxpayers that would have to foot the bill? That's the beauty of making the society pitch in to pay for your privileges - they'll barely notice. Let's take abortion funding as an example. Here, in New Brunswick, we have the pro-abortion lobby suing the provincial government for refusing to subsidize private clinic abortions. Want to know what this whole dispute amounts to money-wise? 600 or so abortions on demand, costing $550-$750 each - that's $330,000 to $450,000 - less than a dollar per NB taxpayer.

Sure, if those abortions were free, then the number of clients would be a lot higher; probably we'd have the same proportion as Nova Scotia - 1300-1400 private clinic abortions a year. The direct cost of those abortions would be ~$1,000,000. That's still roughly $2 per taxpayer.

But aren't there plenty of indirect consequences of abortions - from various health complications associated with the procedure to the overall cost of the family breakdown and the social decay? Of course there are. But those are listed under different columns and, obviously, the abortion supporters will never admit that it's their business that results in all those costly social problems. Just as they will never admit, that abortion takes away a baby's live. For them it's letting their customers exercise their "right" at the society's expense. Which, as we've seen, amounts to merely a few dollars a year per taxpayer.

Are you going to take a day off work and drive all the way to Fredericton for mere $2 a year? How about going to Ottawa to protest against having $4-5 of your annual tax return spent on abortions on demand nation-wide? (~100,000 abortions at $550-$750 each, divided among 15 million taxpayers.) At the same time, wouldn't Morgentaler's franchise (which, as I heard, is losing money,) benefit from that extra million? What about those for whom having an abortion for free means saving $550 to $750 or even more? No wonder they take their time to campaign for taxpayer-funded abortions. And the people in charge of making the decision often grant them their wish - because not everyone is able to realize, that this is about babies' lives, not just so many cents per paycheck.

You see, killing is a profitable business. Even some insurance companies admit that the "choice" to kill an unborn child is cheaper than giving birth. Unless the people are made aware that the baby in the womb is just that - a baby, with a beating heart and a unique personality being formed - the baby killing business will continue to prosper.

Roger Scruton exposes the Liberal social engineering in his American Spectator article. Under the guise of compassion and caring for the less fortunate, the Liberal left in fact fosters social problems, so that they could perpetuate their rule:

I call this sentimentality "totalitarian" since -- like totalitarian government -- it seeks out opposition and carefully extinguishes it, in all the places where opposition might form. Its goal is to "solve" our social problems, by imposing burdens on responsible citizens, and lifting burdens from the "victims," who have a "right" to state support. The result is to replace old social problems, which might have been relieved by private charity, with the new and intransigent problems fostered by the state: for example, mass illegitimacy, the decline of the indigenous birthrate, and the emergence of the gang culture among the fatherless youth.
...
The citizens whose taxes pay for the flood of incoming "victims" cannot protest, since the sentimentalists have succeeded in passing "hate speech" laws and in inventing crimes like "Islamophobia" which place their actions beyond discussion. This is just one example of a legislative tendency that can be observed in every area of social life: family, school, sexual relations, social initiatives, even the military -- all are being deprived of their authority and brought under the control of the "soft power" that rules from above.
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Yes, the Liberal left politicians are experts in creating those "catch-22" situations: First they destroy the traditional family and then they need extra funds for a nation-wide McDaycare system. First they twist the immigration system so that a penniless unskilled refugee claimant has an advantage over a multilingual professional and then they try to fight poverty among minority groups by instituting "corrective" discrimination. First they set the rules which discourage those on social assistance from getting even a part-time job and then, of course, they are the ones determined to fight poverty...

In the end, people just get used to those paradoxes, so they stop noticing them. If anything, the attitude of an average voter is "if the government doesn't do something - who will?" Unfortunately, not many are able to notice that all-intrusive government creates more problems than it solves.

The link between abortion and breast cancer has been confirmed once again. This time - by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute in Seattle. And, unlike so many other organizations that try to raise awareness of the very same fact, the Seattle institute (and a number of distinguished cancer experts including Louise Brinton, the chief of the Hormonal and Reproductive Epidemiology Branch of the National Cancer Institute,) could hardly be accused of having a "pro-life bias" and employing "pro-life scare tactics". Even the media had to agree to that. Sort of:

And trying to prevent abortions by scaring women with breast cancer would truly be wrong. But so too would be suppressing the risks of abortion or any medical procedure.
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Well, thanks for acknowledging the fact that the abortion industry suppresses the risks of abortions. (To say that is to say nothing. As we know, not just the standard informed consent rules, which apply to plastic surgeons, don't apply to abortion providers, but they won't even agree to a common sense requirement to have a sterile operating room to do abortions.)

And what exactly is "truly wrong" with trying to prevent abortions by reminding women of the health risks associated with the procedure? After all, we don't think it's "truly wrong" to try to prevent smoking by "scaring" smokers with lung cancer and other related diseases, do we? If anything, we regard this as raising awareness of the dangers of smoking, not as merely trying to scare smokers with something which is likely, but, obviously, not 100% certain to happen. So, if it's ok to highlight the risks of cancer to discourage as many smokers (and would be smokers) as possible, then why using the same approach to abortions (that too increase the likelihood of cancer) is "truly wrong"?

And, talking about health risks - here are some numbers:

The study found that "a statistically significant 40% increased risk for women who have abortions" exists, and that a " 270% increased risk of triple negative breast cancer (an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality) among those who used oral contraceptives while under age 18 and a 320% increased risk of triple negative breast cancer among recent users (within 1-5 years) of oral contraceptives," also exists.

This means that women who start using OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times.
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So when will we see a big "abortion may result in breast cancer" warning message on the doors of abortion clinics? Or at least - a similar message on the mandatory informed consent form?

That's what Dutch experience with euthanasia looks like. The numbers are going up, not all cases are reported and, as it turns out, many of those deaths are caused without explicit consent from the patient:

An article in the Dutch News reports that the number of registered cases of euthanasia rose by 200 to some 2,500 in 2009. The article also reports that, "It is not known how many cases of mercy killing there actually are in the Netherlands," because only about "80% of instances are registered with the monitoring body."
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"In order to have an accurate picture of the number of deaths that are directly and intentionally caused by physicians in the Netherlands, you need to know that assisted suicide is a separate category in the Netherlands. Therefore you need to add the assisted suicide deaths to the number of euthanasia deaths. The number of assisted suicide deaths was not reported in the article but it is approximately 400 deaths each year," Schadenberg explained.

"Another category of deaths is deaths without explicit consent. The most recent government report (2005) showed that the number of deaths without explicit consent was approximately 550. Many of the 550 deaths are directly and intentionally caused by the physician but not reported as euthanasia because they lacked consent."
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That's not much different than the bill C-384 with its "appears to be lucid" clause. What's being referred to as "mercy killing" is nothing but a straightforward killing. The fact that someone else believes that the patient is in such a bad shape that he would be better off dead than alive, doesn't justify intended death.

...You may want to check the historical data - and you'll find that proroguing the Parliament is by no means an extraordinary action. In fact, in some of the earlier Parliaments, prorogation could occur twice in the same year - and nobody regarded that as an affront to democracy.

Sure, those were the days of yore, the days of a small government, when elected representatives simply didn't have that much work as they have nowadays. Still, prorogation remained a routine procedure, that kept occurring every year or so, up until the end of the 30^th Parliament. And even if we check later Parliaments (35^th, 36^th, 37^th, all of them - majority Parliaments) - we'll still find that some of the sessions only lasted a year or so. Moreover, judging from the prorogation dates, as well as the dates that marked the beginning of the new sessions, the technique to extend a summer (or a winter) recess by a month or so by proroguing the Parliament, was invented long before Harper. In other words - that too is (and was) a common practice.

Let's take the 37^th Parliament as an example. It lasted 1210 days - slightly less than 3 years and 4 months. (A majority Parliament!) About half of that time (595 days) was the first session; the beginning of Jean Chretien's third mandate. In mid-2002, Chretien announced his upcoming retirement and the Parliament was prorogued, so that he could start building his "legusee" with a fresh legislative session. In November of 2003, the Parliament was prorogued again - just before the Liberal party convention on which Paul Martin was elected leader. When the Parliament resumed - it was already a new session with a new Prime Minister and a new legislative agenda.

So, is anyone eager to accuse Chretien of undermining the role of elected representatives, because his decision to prorogue the Parliament back in 2002, resulted in the summer recess being extended by 2 weeks, shortening the fall sitting accordingly? Or how about the next prorogation, which extended the Christmas break of 2003 by more than a month? How come it's ok for the Liberals to shut the Parliament down for an extra month so they could have a convention, but when Harper postpones the reopening of the Parliament until after the Olympics - that's playing politics and undermining the role of elected representatives?

To summarize - prorogation is nothing but a routine procedure that can mark a new direction, but that can also mean merely a break and a fresh start. In this current Parliament, the first prorogation marked an abrupt end of Harper's attempt to govern as if he had had a majority, while the recent prorogation marks the change of the balance of power in the Senate and, hopefully - the change of course in the House of Commons. (Yes, it's rumored that this time, Stephen Harper is determined to put forward a Conservative agenda, for a change.) All private member bills will survive the prorogation and will be automatically reinstated at their previous stage, once the Parliament resumes. As for the key government bills which have died on the order paper - if the opposition is serious about making the Parliament work - they'll vote with the government to get them fast-tracked to where they were prior to the prorogation.

And another thing: if the Liberals do decide to defy the prorogation and show up at the locked gates of the House of Commons on January 25^th, (although, due to the lack of global warming, the Conservative-bashing gathering is likely to take place in a nearby Timmy's,) then maybe someone from the Conservative caucus should show up as well and ask Mr. Speaker (or whoever is going to play his role,) whether the Liberal party is going to be held accountable for violating the maximum contribution limits under the guise of campaign loans. That's just something else to think about.

Back in October, a bunch of pro-abortion hecklers succeeded in shutting down Jojo Ruba's pro-life presentation at McGill university. But even that turns out to be more like a Pyrrhic victory for them:

As discouraging as the protest was, what it ensured was that more discussion occurred. Students debated the issue in their student media. Even the local CTV affiliate mentioned the story as did the National Post. More importantly, these debates were not just about free speech but what kind of free speech is acceptable on campus – is it fair to compare the victims of abortion with the victims of past genocides? That’s exactly the kind of question we want students asking.
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Even abortion advocates came to ask me questions after the talk. One of the more vocal hecklers approached me and looked contrite. He said that in the brief time he could hear my presentation, when he stopped heckling, he actually began to listen. “I know you probably don’t want to talk to me but I wanted you to know that after hearing a little bit of your talk, I see where you were going and wanted to hear more.”

This shows why it is so important for us to be on the frontlines of the abortion debate. When abortion advocates use these tactics, it is because their arguments are so weak, they cannot stand under scrutiny. Their actions betray their desperation. I even found an article that was being distributed by the protesters written by Denisse Temin. In it, she complains about how effective pro-lifers are in reopening the abortion debate on campus. She writes “I am deeply concerned about how anti-choice youth groups are forging a battle within the grounds of educational institutions…This has grabbed the media’s attention, stirring public debate and backlash against [abortion advocates]…”
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H/t No Apologies

So, even a few words of truth can sometimes be enough to make at least one of the pro-abortion bullies reconsider his behavior. No wonder the pro-aborts are so paranoid about pro-life presentations on campus. For now, they may have the campus security and the police on their side (as the former doesn't care to put an end to their bullying and the latter doesn't bother to charge those few that actually got arrested). For now they may even have the support from the silent majority that simply doesn't care. But, thanks to the devoted students like Jose Ruba, Stephanie Gray and many others - the tide is starting to turn.

When I reposted an essay about what happens when the homosexual lobby triumphs, one named Paula responded by claiming that homosexuals are "some of the most oppressed people still remaining in the United States". Well, let's take a look at this story and see for ourselves who happens to be the most oppressed people in the US.

January 2, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Ex-homosexual Lisa Miller has apparently disappeared following a court order to transfer custody of her daughter to lesbian Janet Jenkins, her former partner, on January 1st.
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Miller, 40, has battled since 2003 to protect her daughter from Jenkins, 43, who was joined to her in a Vermont "civil union" in December, 2000. After a relationship that Miller says was abusive, she left Jenkins and returned to her former faith in Christ, renouncing her previous homosexual behavior.

During her relationship with Jenkins, Miller was artificially inseminated and gave birth to Isabella. Miller states that Judge Cohen granted parental rights to Jenkins and ordered visitation, despite a lack of biological relationship and the absence of any law granting parental rights to civil union partners.
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According to Miller, her daughter has been traumatized by previous visits, even expressing a wish to die. She also says that her daughter told her she was forced to bathe naked with Jenkins.
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Judge Richard Cohen, who has granted visitation rights and now custody of seven-year-old Isabella Miller to Jenkins despite the absence of any law authorizing it, said in a hearing on December 29 that "it appears that Ms. Miller has ceased contact with her attorneys and disappeared with the minor child".
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Let's look at it again, shall we? Let's start with highlighting one simple fact - in order to have a child within her lesbian relationship, Lisa Miller needed an artificial insemination. So much about homosexual couples being biologically capable of forming a relationship which has the same unitive and procreative functions as an actual marriage.

Then, once the relationship fell apart, Lisa's abusive partner demanded visitation rights to the child - and won the case. Try to picture a heterosexual man in her place. Even if he was the biological father - how easy would it be for him to win visitation rights, in light of his ex-wife's claims that their relationship had been abusive? Most likely, even if visitation rights were granted, they would come with plenty of conditions attached; he would be under a constant supervision from all sorts of child welfare agencies to ensure that there's absolutely no chance for abuse.

None of those precautions apply when visitation rights are demanded by a lesbian woman who has no biological relationship with the girl whatsoever. Moreover, when it turns out that such visits traumatize the little girl, that she is being abused by her mother's lesbian ex-partner - nobody cares. Again - imagine what would happen to a heterosexual man if he forced his preschool son to bathe naked with him. I bet, the next time he'd see his son would only be after the boy's 18th birthday. (Likely - through the bars of the maximum security prison.) But a lesbian pedophile, who pretends to have a family relationship with her victim, appears to be above the law.

If anything, the person representing the law, dishonorable judiciary activist Richard Cohen, acts as a good friend of hers. He ignores the fact that Vermont state "civil unions" don't deal with parental rights. (So much about a "compromise" that would give perverse couples all the financial benefits, but keep parental rights to real marriages.) He ignores the suffering of a little girl that is being abused by a woman who is a complete stranger to her. And when the girl's mother does that's right and disallows her abusive ex-partner to see the girl again, the very same crook on the bench grants the very same abusive ex-partner full custody over Lisa Miller's daughter.

Believe it or not, that's what he did. Is it that from his twisted prospective, the poor girl would be better off with a lesbian pedophile than with her biological mother? Or maybe he merely wanted to punish Lisa for committing a terrible crime of "homophobia"? Either way, when the time came for the final act of the tragedy to be staged, Lisa chose to just go into hiding, than waiting for the "child welfare" stormtroopers to come and drag her daughter away, kicking and screaming. Hopefully she is someplace safe now.

And hopefully, her attorney and her supporters could continue the legal battle on Lisa's behalf, in spite of her becoming a fugitive. If not - I hope there's at least one state (just one out of 50,) with enough common sense legislators to pass a law that would shelter Lisa and little Isabella Miller, as well as all other mothers who merely want to save their children from becoming guinea pigs in a terrible social experiment.

One of the few negative consequences of the recent prorogation is that the vote on the euthanasia bill (C-384) is delayed once again. Since it's a private member bill, C-384 will survive the prorogation and will be automatically reinstated at the previous stage, once the Parliament resumes in March. Still, the second hour of debate and the actual vote, which originally should have taken place last fall, is not going to occur until late March.

That allows the euthanasia supporters to win a lot more time in their attempt to save the bill C-384. They'll try to win the support of the more moderate MPs (mostly those who oppose euthanasia, but support assisted suicide,) by promising a compromise, to be worked out by the committee, should bill C-384 pass the second reading. No compromise however justifies making intended death legal. Yes, they may call it "euthanasia" or "assisted suicide", but in reality we're talking about direct actions that intentionally cause patient's death. That's what bill C-384 is all about:

Bill C-384 would legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.
(For the purpose of the analysis, euthanasia and assisted suicide will be referred to as "intended death".)
Bill C-384 does not restrict intended death to Canadian citizens. (The bill could make Canada a destination for Suicide Tourists and Suicide Clinics).
The individual would need to be at least 18 years old.
Bill C-384 does not limit intended death to the terminally ill and it does not define terminal illness.
The individual may refuse appropriate treatments and still die by an intended death.
Bill C-384 allows intended death for people who experience depression or other chronic mental conditions.
Bill C-384 measures competency based on "appearing to be lucid". The term "appearing to be lucid" does not assure that the individual is actually lucid.
The language of the bill is not clear whether medical practitioners are the only individuals who can intend the death of an incompetent individual.
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It's being speculated that the Parliament is not going to last long. Many predict a failed confidence vote (on the budget or even on the Throne Speech,) and yet another early election call shortly after the new Parliamentary session begins in March. If that happens, then euthanasia is likely to become an election issue - among with many other items that haven't been passed by the 40-th Parliament. And it will be up to us, the voters, to make it clear that we want no more compromises on our right to life.

Ezra Levant has already published a few comments on KAIROS funding scandal. So you can see for yourself what kind of organization KAIROS is, what kind of people and organizations they proudly support and how they try to hide it now, pretending they never did. Obviously, I'm glad that the Federal government has finally stopped giving them money.

But there's a bigger question here: why should the government provide taxpayers' funds to non-government organizations? Since when did it become norm for a (supposedly) non-government organization to receive some 35%-40% of its funds from the government? And how come it's commonly believed that the government no longer has the right to cancel those subsidies?

Let's take another look at what this so called "Christian charity" looks like:

If you remain unpersuaded of the case to let KAIROS's members support it, rather than taxpayers, perhaps I can draw your attention to their last annual report. Here are some of the things they spend your money on:

Fundraising and overhead: $800K

"Energy justice": $500K

"Public engagement": $400K

That's all pure politics -- and it just happens to equal the amount of dough they're demanding from the government. By contrast, "anti-poverty grants" only account for $148K, or just 3.7% of their budget.
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Those numbers say it all, don't they? Not to mention that, in all those years, the government was in fact funding its political opponents. No, I'm not saying that they have no rights to campaign for what they believe in. I'm only saying that they shouldn't do that on taxpayers' money. So I hope that CIDA doesn't cave in under the growing pressure from all those "social justice" wackos and doesn't reverse the funding cuts.

But that's just one NGO out of many. Yes, the government has reduced its projected expenses by an average of $1.75M a year. But, considering that the deficit is $56 billion, it's like saving a quarter, while going $8000 deeper in debt. Sure, an extra quarter in the cookie jar - that's nice, but a lot more effort is actually needed.

What's needed is a thorough audit of every single government expense. And the best way to achieve that is with zero-based budgeting. In other words, instead of merely requiring the departments to keep their expenses from growing beyond reasonable limits, each department must be compelled to explain why those expenses are even there.

I won't be surprised if, once the government departments are forced to justify every single expense they incur, we'll find plenty of "temporary" expenditures that should have expired long ago, along with plenty of "year-end" expenses, when the department is just eager to spend the money before the fiscal year is over, so that it looks like they truly needed all those funds...

So it's time for the government to bring in the zero-based budgeting. A whooping deficit is not just an excuse - it's a dangerous symptom that must be addressed immediately. Even if in the opinion of Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty, it's still too early to end the "stimulus" spending, zero-based budgeting could still be implemented as a "pilot project" in some of the non-essential departments. Including CIDA which has been milked by the NGO parasites for decades.

Today is a great day for the Senate Reform cause. Today we wish Senator Jerry Grafstein a happy 75-th birthday and lots of good time at retirement. His departure leaves yet another Senate seat vacant and, once those 5 vacant seats are filled, the Conservative caucus will finally outnumber the Liberals 51:48. Sure, that's only a plurality, the Conservatives may still need one or two Independents to support them in the key votes (provided all the Liberal and "PC" Senators show up,) but that still makes it a lot easier for them to pass the long awaited Senate Reform bills, than it was just a couple months ago.

One of those bills, S-7, which restricts Senate term to 8 years, has already been on the order paper. Sure, it will have to be reintroduced again, once the Parliament reopens following the prorogation; but this time, it actually has a chance to go beyond the second reading debate. We can even look forward for the Red Chamber to pass the resurrected bill S-7 before the summer recess (although October or November seems to be more likely) and, as long as the Parliament survives all the confidence votes that accompany the start of the new session, Senate term limits could become law of the land sometime next year.

Senate election bill should follow next. Sure, that's still a long way to go - the bill itself wasn't even reintroduced in the Commons during the past session and, once introduced, the Conservative minority will still have to overcome the filibustering of the three opposition parties. However, things may go faster this time. After all, unless Ed Stelmach chooses to break the tradition, Alberta is going to have another (fourth) Senate nominee election this October (along with the scheduled municipal elections). Hopefully, with Alberta's experience clearly showing that citizens can be trusted to elect their Senators, some of the opposition MPs agree to let the bill pass and to make those elections biding on the future Prime Ministers and Governor Generals.

Meanwhile, Alberta is likely to have 3 Senate seats contested this year - as per the number of vacancies to occur before 2016. Among those seats - the one currently held by Bert Brown, the second ever and currently - the only sitting elected Senator. Sure, his mandatory retirement is not until 2013. But Bert Brown will most likely choose to abide by the Alberta's unofficial 6-year term limit and resign within a few weeks of the vote to make way for the newly elected Senate nominee. And, if that happens, then, for the first time in Canadian history, we'll have a directly elected Senator stepping down at the end of his fixed term, to make way for his elected successor.

Whoever takes Bert Brown's seat will become the third directly elected Senator in Canada's history. With the other two likely to join him later - either following the retirement of Tommy Banks and Joyce Fairbairn (scheduled for December 17, 2011 and November 6, 2014 respectively,) or even earlier - should the unelected Senators resign or should Stephen Harper decide to establish a solid majority by appointing 8 additional ("regional") Senators.

So, with the Liberals having lost their dominance over the Red Chamber, we can finally look forward for the first steps towards reforming what has long been the House of Liberal Lords.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

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